I usually record in 1080i, because the image on hdtv is beautyful, I like that it has cool colors and has fine details. After this struggle I will try the 720p, but all the videos I have so far are in 1080i.

How does it play though? Jerky? or Smooth? and how are you watching it? Camera connected directly to HDTV or though computer?

Most PAL spec DVD players will play NTSC material, but I'm unclear as to how the 59.94i signal gets displayed on a 50Hz panel

If 1080i59.94 plays smoothly on your HDTV, you could try making a 59.94i NTSC DVD - it might be using the same cadence conversion

For me this is a solution, but I recorded a concert for my friend, and his DVD player doesn't play the NTSC DVD. Mine plays. But the truth is that this Interpolated sample that was linked above is better than the NTSC DVD I could make. So it would be great if I could convert the files that way.

I play the 1080i videos on the HDTV that you can read about in the initial post. That plays the files wonderfully. I watch the DVDs on my DVD player, mine supprts NTSC, the quality is not bad, but still a little jerky when I convert my files.

The image on HDTV when I play the original mp4 files is also a bit jerky, but only occasionally, and not very much. I also have a JVC GZ-HM300 camcorder, when I record with the max setting on that (1080i), the video is continuous, however. I don't know the reason for this, maybe my sdhc is not fast enough for the Sanyo, but maybe the answer is that the JVC outputs the video in 1080p, and that's why there are not jerks. When I measured my card's speed, 16 mbps was measured (or kbps, I don't remember the correct name). It is a Fuji SDHC class10. Maybe it is not fast enough, and that's why there are some occasional small jumps when I record with the Sanyo.

I don't know which file you mean on the 50i interpolated. You mean that 25i interpolated that was linked? That is a bit jerkier than the mp4 on my HDTV, but still much better than the conversions I have done with my DVD makers, or any conversions to other file formats.

The image on HDTV when I play the original mp4 files is also a bit jerky, but only occasionally, and not very much. I also have a JVC GZ-HM300 camcorder, when I record with the max setting on that (1080i), the video is continuous, however. I don't know the reason for this, maybe my sdhc is not fast enough for the Sanyo, but maybe the answer is that the JVC outputs the video in 1080p, and that's why there are not jerks. When I measured my card's speed, 16 mbps was measured (or kbps, I don't remember the correct name). It is a Fuji SDHC class10. Maybe it is not fast enough, and that's why there are some occasional small jumps when I record with the Sanyo.

I don't know which file you mean on the 50i interpolated. You mean that 25i interpolated that was linked? That is a bit jerkier than the mp4 on my HDTV, but still much better than the conversions I have done with my DVD makers, or any conversions to other file formats.

Class10 is fine, and the card won't be an issue. If there was a card problem, it wouldn't drop a frame here or there, the entire file would be corrupted

Yes I mean the 25i interpolated file (again 25i, 50i are the same thing, just different naming conventions)

How were you watching the 25i interpolated file? If on the computer, was it set to "bob" deinterlace? If not, you might only be watching a single rate deinterlaced file

In theory, the interpolated file should actually be smoother than your original file (again ignoring the quality differences, or interpolation errors, just look at the motion characteristics). Hence the recommendations to get a different camcorder.

Recall the "evenly divisible" and "evenly spaced" discussion? The original file is 59.94i which means not evenly divisible into 50. The original file should have problems, unless you watch it on 60Hz display , 300Hz PAL display, or you have a display that does some sort of motion interpolation (like TruMotion on some LG displays)

On a normal PAL DVD (I'm calling it 50i, but you can call it 25i, again same thing), a normal DVD player bob deinteraces it - each field becomes a frame so what you see are 50 full images per second. This matches your HDTV refresh rate 50Hz. Note 50 and 50 are perfectly divisible. Single rate deinterlacing (what many software players do by default), throw away half the frames, so you get 25p and motion is not as smooth (but it's not as jerky as decimating frames, as 25 is still evenly divisbile into 50)

WMP might or might not deinterlace properly depending on how you set it up and what filters you have installed. Just to confirm, check with vlc, set the deinterlace to on, and either bob or yadif 2x - that is how it should look on a PAL DVD player on a 50Hz display

Anyways, this is more academic than anything since you've decided to go the interpolation route anyway

Well, I am getting close to understand what you are trying to refer to. So it means, if you go for smooth image, besides the fps, you have to consider the refresh rate of the TV, too? I didn't notice that so far.

And just to make sure, this 50 full images per second is what 'p' means, right?

I will try this software you write. I noticed there is a filename included in the code, so I have to replace that with the file name that I want to convert. If I write the file name alone, I guess I have to copy the video file into the root directory of the software, right?

And another thing: I am not sure if I interpreted it well, but is this the situation that it is possible to write a DVD in i or p? Or I understood this wrong? If yes, what software is capable of choosing i or p on conversion? I have tried some softwares, they didn't offer i or p, only displayed an fps value number, that's all.

I can't see your screen cap. You need to install AviSynth. Then download Yadif and mvtools. Copy those to AviSynth's plugins folder. You may need to install a DirectShow MP4 reader/splitter. I use LAV Filters. Haali should work too. Yadif is a special case plugin, you'll need to import it into the script (I have an AVSI file that loads it automatically whenever AviSynth is used).

I can't see your screen cap. You need to install AviSynth. Then download Yadif and mvtools. Copy those to AviSynth's plugins folder. You may need to install a DirectShow MP4 reader/splitter. I use LAV Filters. Haali should work too. Yadif is a special case plugin, you'll need to import it into the script (I have an AVSI file that loads it automatically whenever AviSynth is used).

I am not sure if directshow is installed or not. From where can you download that? Is it one software or it is a group of different plugins? I have Haali media splitter installed. Is that enough, or Directshow is needed?

Okay, now the files load. I can see two windows with two videos. What to do next?

As I told you I am not sure if the proper Direct show filter is installed or not on my machine, but I have Haali installed. Is that enough, or I should get the Directshow filers you wrote about? Where can I get those?

Okay, so make something clear for me, please: what is happenning now during this process?

Here is this HcGUI. The script that I have loaded in it, it defines the settings that HcGUI should use to encode the file? Am I right? Or the commands in the script are just presets, they define how HcGUI should see the file, and I am using defult settings of HcGUI regarding the encoding process?

And secondly, if the file is ready, what to do next? This m2v will be 25i as I interpreted. Which software can make a suiatble DVD from this? Should I write a 25i DVD from it, or that is not an option? This part is still unclear for me.

Oh, and just a minor thing: I saw there is a box: Shutdown on the encoding panel. Does it stand for that the program shuts the computer down after the process is ready?

AviSynth is a frame server. It serves frames of uncompressed video to another program. The script makes AviSynth read the source video, deinterlace it, downsize the frame, interpolate motions to 50 fps, then create interlaced frames at 25 fps. HcGUI gets those frames (via the script) and encodes them with whatever settings you specify. Once you have the M2V (MPEG 2 elementary stream, video only) from HcGUI you can author with whatever DVD authoring software you like -- just makes sure it doesn't reencode the video. I use an old copy of Ulead DVD Moviefactory. Of course, you'll also need to prepare the audio. If you made a DVD before (and didn't make any cuts) you could just demux the audio from that.

One issue you might have is A/V sync from the odd frame rate of the source. I told AviSynth to assume it was 30000/1001 because that's the normal frame rate for NTSC video. But the frame rate that AviSynth saw was 60.something (which was obviously wrong). I don't know if I should have set it to half of 60.something instead. So check the audio sync.

Actually I didn't set anything in HcGUI itself, just used the default settings. Do I have to change something to get such a good quality file that you linked before, that 25i motion interpolated m2v?

And I don't understand the following: if the m2v is video only, how does it come your sample have audio? That you linked on the previous page?

By the way! When you told me to open the script in Virtual Dub, I tried saving the loaded video as AVI. Interestingly the outcome was quite good. The AVI was continuous, similar to your linked 25i m2v, just the sound was incorrect, it was extremely fast, and the picture size was 5:4 instead of 16:9. If I could set the sound correctly and the picture 16:9, I could make that kind of avi without needing to bother with the audio seperately. Would that be possible? I just don't know whether the sound and picture ratio problem comes from the fact that your script was not 100% suitable for virtual dub, or those values have to be changed in the options of Virtual Dub itself. If it was the script, how should I modify it? If this was a possible good way, I would test this too, just to save time from needing to bother with the audio preparation.

interp.m2v in post #20 has no audio. AviSynth is passing audio to HcGUI but HcGUI isn't using it. HcGUI only deals with the video. I encodeded the script with Constant Quantization of 3. I would try 2 instead, enable the "check VBF/max bitrate" option, and set the max bitrate to ~9000 kbps. Unless you need to fit more than an hour on the DVD. In that case, set it up for a 2 pass encode with the appropriate average bitate. Make sure it's also set to encode interlaced, TFF, 16:9.

VirtualDub by default will save as uncompressed video and audio. It will have no aspect ratio flags so it will play 5:4 on most players. You can use that to feed your DVD authoring software if you want. Just tell the software that the AVI is 16:9 and interlaced because the AVI can't tell the software that. I didn't even look at the audio in VirtualDub. Right now my system is screwed up so I can't check the audio for you.

I fixed the problem I was having. The audio appears to be fine when I open the AVS script in VirtualDub here. But this type of problem is common when using DirectShowSource(). It depends on what DirectShow filters you have installed because DirectShow is opening the file and decompressing the audio and video for AviSynth.

(I noticed the video is two fast in the end, it is not clearly visible, but I click: 'Save as AVI' when saving the file in Virtualdub.)

I didn't find a separate filed to set the 'pass'. But I saw the software writes when you tick VBF/max bitrate that 1 pass encoding is turned on, so I guess that is enough, right?

Anyway, I always aborted the process in Virtual dub, and watched only that small portion of the video that was encoded. Maybe this is the reason the sound is not good, because it encoded the full sound into that short video piece, and that's why it plays so fast... We'll see. I will do the full conversion now.

I will try both softwares, and see what comes out as result. When working with the m2v, is it okay if I extract the sound from the mp4 files, and put that audio file into the DVD creator? I could make a wav or mp3. Or shall I make a DVD compatibile format right away, like an mp2? And where can the sound be attached to the file? DVD Movie factory can do that, or I have to use a separate VOB file creator to merge the video and sound?

Unfortunately the sound is still to fast when converting the video in full with Virtual Dub. How can I uninstall the recent Direct Show filters and where can I download the correct ones? I cannot find this thing in the Uninstall Programs in Control panel, how can I remove the incorrect filters from my machine?